NATURAL MUSICAL TONE AFFECTS THE BRAIN IN EXACTLY THE SAME WAY
AS MARIJUANA:
THEY ARE EXOGENOUS NEURAL EXCITANTS, AND BECAUSE ONLY TUBES
CAN CREATE NATURAL MUSICAL TONE WE GET A POWERFUL MUSICAL HIGH

While studying the highest of the high, the "Moses"
of the audio arts Harry Olsen's, 1952 book, Music, Physics and Engineering,
, on the potty twenty five years ago, I discovered .THE SINGLE MOST
IMPORTANT ATTRIBUTE OFMUSIC IS TONE a notion that Olsen
glommed from thousands of years of music pedagogy. So what did I do? I glommed
Olsen's idea and it become my compass in the audio storm.

This means that if you don't have righteous tone,
you have nada, zip, zilch. If you have the widest stereo image, have woodifying
micro-dynamics, and whopper size bass none of this matters, if you don't
have natural tone.

Do you get it? Get tone right first, even if you have
to sacrifice other values which explains why Japanese audiomaniac culture
obsesses over tone, their "compass in the audio storm, and I subtitled my
first book about tube circuits "Natural Harmonics Audio".

TONE IS TO MUSIC
AS
PASSION IS TO LOVE
TRUTH IS TO BEAUTY
THE HOLE IS TO A BAGEL

Now let's take a trip and discover why tube audio
came to dominate the highest echelon of the audio arts in spite of the
heap of solid state hype .ride on and just follow the yellow brick
road

CAN A PLANT BE RESPONSIBLE FOR A SHIFT IN
MUSIC CONSCIOUSNESS?

60 MINUTES REPORT

A recent segment on America's highest rated program
"60 Minutes" was all about "America's Number One Cash Crop: Marijuana",
and it was shot on location down South. The program explored the revitalization
of many farming communities that were on the brink of bankruptcy, because
they shifted from "looser crops" and were now cultivating a very profitable
crop, with the 'support' of their community. Marijuana farmers, who couldn't
make it a competing with agricultural imports , were now competing and winning
in the competition with the billions of dollars chasing imported marijuana
from Mexico.

Compare the street price of a pound of marijuana to
a pound of beans. These American ex-bean farmers now had enough cash to support
the election of politicians who would look the other way. The program explored
the fact that not only were these towns prospering, but the crime rate was
down, because there was less theft, and higher employment and no failed
bank loans. Any Federal agents coming into these community were guaranteed
of zero cooperation.

The American entrepreneurial spirit knows no limitation
and when Willie Nelson launched his series of FARM AID CONCERT, farmers
who attended got the message when they noticed that the audience was in a
cloud of marijuana smoke.

ETHNOBOTANY

At the beginning of the twentieth century a new science
was invented, just as the agricultural revolution hit big time in America:
ethnobotany, the scientific investigation of the effects that plants have
on culture and human history .like how the Irish potato famine changed
the course of Irish and American history.

Or how the British used, in the 19th century
opium plant grown and processes in their Indian colonies and then exported
to China to get political control of large tracts of China with the natural
result THE OPIUM WARS.

Soon it was discovered that every indigenous native
culture had an extremely sophisticated understanding of plants that far exceeded
industrial man's understanding because their survival depended on plants not
only for food, but for medicine and as an essential aspect of their religion.
Knowledge of plants was essential for survival.

The Andean culture was dependent on chewing the cocoa
leaf, without which living at high altitudes and the construction of their
magnificent stone building would have been impossible.

The American Indian tribes were so sophisticated in
their understanding of plant cultivation that their favorite plant crops;
the ones that they developed over thousands of years, when exported, literally
saved the 17th century European culture from collapse due to famine.
Beans, potatoes, melons, squash, corn, exported to Europe became the agricultural
foundation of the 19th centuries Industrial revolution. But the
American Indians also knew how to use plants as medicines, and their sacred
plant , the tobacco plant, which was taxed by Britain became the irritant
that sparked the American revolution. But there was an even deeper understanding
of plant's power and it was central to these tribes religion: mind altering
plants that were used in trance like meditations were essential ingredient
in vision quests. The peyote plant is now only legally used by American Indian
tribes.

The question that still baffles most Westerners is
.."How did the Egyptian culture accomplish their extraordinary feats without
the aid of the wheel? On another level the question is often asked "Why
is the Egyptian mind so completely unique in human history". Ethnobotanists
point out that the Egyptians were a hemp based culture and marijuana smoking
was as common in Egypt as cocoa leaf chewing was common in Andean culture and
probably explains how the Pyramids were built, and the Egyptian's unique vision
of the cosmos, and their hippie clothing.

I have often suggested that from Moses to the other
"heroes" of the Old Testament, they were all doing what was common in Semitic
cultures priest used mind altering plants to make clearer contact with
the spirits. I remind you of the ancient Turnkey opium cultivation, and the
use of opium by troops, as an explanation of why the "infidels" were able
to beat the Christian Crusaders.

Or, consider the most common human impulse to alter
our mind with "nectar" plants in the form of alcoholic beverages. How
does one alter the mind with these beverages? The answer is with plants because
all alcoholic beverages, from the crudest Egyptian barley beer to the most
sophisticated wines are based on the fermentation or distillation of plants.
No wonder ancient man thought that plants had magic power and they do..to
sustain life and to induce altered states of mind, which make contact with
"higher powers" much easier. Why are spirits called spirits? Now you know
the connection between alcohol and God..in what ever form it takes from snake
to Avenger.

Recently ethnobotanists have asked how plants affected
the development of human consciousness.

What about this truly pragmatic notion, because human
evolution is all about pragmatism: those humans who could identify plants
that sharpened their senses and made them better hunters by improving
their hearing, sight and hearing gained a competitive advantage? What
if the consumption of certain types of plants improved our ability to create
language? Isn't language a powerful tool of survival making our clan more
effective in performing work? Is it possible that certain plants affect the
brain and stimulate the beginning of symbolic thought which is the beginning
of thinking?

Let's walk into a modern rock and roll recording session.
What is that strange smell of burning rope the same smell that permeates
rock concerts? Is it possible that the development of multi-track recording
and the completely new multi-dimensional aural matrix that was created flowed
from a music mind altered by plant alkaloids? Is it possible that modern musicians
from Louis Armstrong to the Beatles are doing nothing more than imitating
the ancient wisdom of Wholey men?

A HILARIOUS HILL OF SOLID STATE HYPE

The reason that I have asserted, so many times, that
the audio industry has the unique distinction of being the lowest IQ of all
male tool industries is because it is the only to use PERFECT when
describing its products, which is an insult to any intelligent man because
there is no such thing when it comes to machines not even the $5 billion
Hubbell space telescope.

In the late 1960s the hype began .0000000001%
distortion, with actual claims of "PERFECT SOUND", so consumers naturally
chucked their tube gear in favor of transistors and it was small and
powerful and MODERN and POWERFUL, and what man can resist the pressure from
his wife for neater and smaller? The recording arts when Gah, Gah, because
transistors had lower noise figures and solid state gear never needed maintenance
or adjustment. What difference did it make how it sounded?

What a thrill to own a stereo receiver that had NO
DISTORTION and 100 watts per channel for only $369!

THREE SHOCKS TO MY SENSUAL META-CONTENTS:GRASS AS AN EXOGENOUS NEURAL EXCITANT

I declared that dope smoking was wrong, and maintained
that position, and my virginity until I was twenty six, until a women took
advantage of me, and told me that she wouldn't have sex with me unless I took
at least four drags of her joint. We were in my apartment listening to my
solid state stereo to candlelight and I gave in.

You may not believe this but I discovered that marijuana
changed my brain and (1) made sex feel better, (2) the music was a much more
intensely pleasureful experience, boarding on the fucking mysterious, and
(3) ice cream became ambrosia.

All of a sudden all of my LPs sounded completely different .I
was not listening to the music, I was swimming in the music, and I
couldn't get enough of this deep music pleasure just like tens of millions
of others who were now surfing on a wave of sex, drugs and rock and roll .and
the music business exploded.

I stepped back and looked around and I reached the
conclusion, based on my own uptight Ivy League education and uptight suburban
upbringing that a sensual revolution was going on in the same way it
happened in the 1920s when the radio and the record, coupling with JAZZ/BOOZE
was liberating the American soul. Now it was the ROCK/DOPE sensual
revolution, and for good reason. I remind you that this perfectly synchronized
with the availability of the birth control pill. This was the one two punch
that knocked out America's last vestige of Puritanism, men in suits, and women
who wore girdles.

Because millions of Americans were now exactly recreating
a most ancient ritual ..using music and sacred plants to experience higher
dimensions of reality . There was a major shift in musical consciousness
on many level all expressed through the technology. Our hearing was much
more sensitive and with the release from our aural repression a rebellious
virus soon emerged and started to plague all across America: TUBES SOUND
BETTER THAN SOLID STATE. Something didn't seem right about this at first
because tubes were the old fashioned gear that we just chucked in favor of
PERFECT solid state.

Who can we trust? Yet, every rock and roll guitarist
used a tube amp. It only took one taste under the influence to
hear the big gaping gap between tubes and transistors. After we heard this
big sound gap, and we weren't stoned, we could still hear the big sound gap,
and we were confused .but our ears were telling us a profound truth.

Am I suggesting that the tube audio rebellion in America
is now accelerating because three decades ago rock and roll musicmaniacs,
who were smoking dope, discovered a lie told a million times is still a lie?
Yup, and even before the Internet made musicmaniac contact so easy, it was
easy to discover that all around the world, from Europe to Asia, we were all
discovering the same truth..with or without dope smoking: TUBES RULE.

I suggest that dope smoking had a big impact on the
American music culture because of the bursting power of the dialectic America
was such a repressive/violent culture, we had to create our own dialectic,
or be destroyed and PEACE, LOVE AND BAN THE BOMB, emerged from the marijuana
altered rock and roll mind as the primal savior of America's soul.

This was also the mind that created a small community
of musicmaniacs that rebelled against solid state hype because MUSIC QUALITY
MATTERS and the rest is history.

I often make the allusion to my experience in the
fashion industry with polyester, which is the analog of transistors. After
billions of dollars of hype, and years of effort to convince the American
public that FAUX IS BETTER consumers rejected polyester because humans care
about sensuality and transistors and polyester don't feel natural.

How much money was spent promoting tube gear? Have
you ever heard a radio commercial or seen a television commercial for tube
gear? Have you ever seen an ad in a major magazine selling tube gear?

WHARTON BUSINESS MODEL

It appears that hundreds of billions of dollars are
spent every year in America on marijuana, creating a very large illegal industry
supplying American's need to expand their mind. Much of this illegal activity
is directly connected to enhancing the experience of music because music
at concerts and in the home is so mediocre.

For thousands of years, and in all cultures, humans
used mind altering substances, to get out of their normal mind, and into a
higher sense of reality, and no government policy is going to change that
ancient human pursuit.

Consider the answer to this question from a Wharton
School of Business point of view: How much do Americans spend every year to
alter their minds include in your calculation all of the prescribed drugs
from tranquilizers, mood alteration, anti-depressants, et. al, to all of the
illegal substances, from marijuana, to cocaine, to Ecstasy, including all
of the alcoholic beverages and tobacco products..and what ever else you can
think of? The answer is that it is over $1 trillion and very profitable.

TONE AS AN EXOGENOUS NEURAL EXCITANT

I am not suggesting marijuana smoking is the
strategy to determine what audio electronics are best for you, because it
is a waste of money, and could get you arrested. There is a better path to
take you the high place you aspire to just listen to music with tube
electronics because it will affect your mind exactly the same way because
only tube circuits can create natural tone. Only tube electronics
can alter your mind in the right way.

Now let me give you the world's quickest pedagogic
insight about why tonal quality is so critical, and it is purely pragmatic
and empirical: Tone isthe most important musical attribute
because tone it is the elixir, the stimulant of musical ecstasy. It
is well documented that the right combination of even and odd order harmonics,
which determine tonal quality, stimulates our brain to secrete endorphins,
dopamine, and other exotic brain juices, which induces a very pleasureful
"high" out of body experiences. Harmonics are an exogenousneural
excitant: harmonics are an external stimulant that excites the nerve endings
of our brain..like sex, the smell of barbecued steak, or the vibrations of
a V-8 motor and makes the brain juices of ecstasy flow.

I have now explained why we invented music 150,000
years ago. If you have any doubt about this phenomenon, check out what happens
to your body when you scratch glass with a sharp metal object, thereby producing
a great deal of high order, odd order harmonics the type of harmonics
that never appear in music.

One more time for the newbie to tone: Tone does to
our body, what the smell of a barbecued steak does to our body it makes
us salivate and bark like a dog. Tone does to our brain what plant alkaloids
do to our brain. Or..If music soothes our savage breast, it is because
the tone/harmonics of music causes our glandular system to secrete the juices
of ecstasy and this process begins while we are in our mother's womb,
swimming in the tone of her heartbeat.

Why has plastic never replaced wood in stringed instruments?
Why hasn't plastic replaced brass, or silver, in wind instruments? There are
three answers: tone, tone, tone. I don't have to remind you about the direct
relationship between the value of a musical instrument and its tonal quality.
Just try and buy a Stradivarius or vintage Fender or Gibson guitar.

Shall I say this another way? The best way to explain
the power of tube audio is that it gets us musically high in the same way
as a mind altering plant, because tube are available to produce the natural
tone of music and that task is impossible for transistors.

MARK LEVINSON'S TONAL ASCENSION

How powerful is the tide of tube consciousness? It
is powerful enough to sweep up one of the Grand Priests of the Solid State,
Mark Levinson, and convert him to tubes. After twenty five years of preaching
the superiority of transistors Mark has seen the light; he is a convert to
tubes, and for a good reason musical consciousness demands it. His new
company Red Rose Music, only sells tube electronics. Get the message?

Never ever feel ashamed about your need to get musically
high it is what makes you such a special man.

Haykoo is a poetic form first created by the
American master poet Orville Redenbacher, and then imitated by the Japanese.
This form of poetry is especially profound when it is written or read while
eating popcorn.